In wrestling, there is a moment when things aren't looking good for our babyface. In that moment, our face starts reaching out to the audience. "Only your cheers can save me," they seem to say.
Maybe they summon cheers and chants by reaching and wiggling their finger, as if trying to grasp something just out of reach. Maybe they start stomping on the mat to encourage the audience to clap.
Most of the time the audience is happy to do so. The audience likes to participate. But it's also kind of a problem.
It's very telling that the audience is being "cued." It reveals that the audience's attention and engagement is not in sync with the match happening right in front of them.
With a bloated roster that does nothing but expand, it makes sense that the audience might seem aloof. There is so much wrestling being offered, but I'd wager only a handful of fans care about every match. After all, everyone has their favorites.
I've said this before: Watching WWE is a lot like consuming a comics publisher's entire line of comics in one sitting. Some fans just want to read the Batman or Wonder Woman comics, but they are also getting Green Lantern and Aquaman. It takes a special kind of talent to make me care about the likes of Green Lantern and Aquaman, and I'm not just talking about the talent of the individual wrestlers.
The problem with wrestling is essentially the same as the problem with comics. There's very little difference on the surface. Good guys vs. bad guys. Shocking twists. The occasional payoff.
The thing is, comics have done a much better job over the years of reinventing itself. They've learned how to bend the rules without breaking them. Meanwhile, wrestling (specifically WWE) isn't all that different from how they've been in the '80s.
Think about Chris Claremont and his run on X-Men. He defined the X-Men, arguably more than Stan Lee did. It was his vision that saved X-Men from cancellation. But here's the thing: he stayed on the book too long. It got stale. His voice--his stories--grew to be out of sync with the audience. In addition, the product was diluted with numerous spinoffs and companion books. (The X-Men "world" is notoriously difficult to keep track of.) They were popular, so there was more money to be made by producing more product.
At this moment, WWE has many shows. There's the flagship show (Raw), it's companion show (SmackDown Live), it's niche shows (NXT, 205 Live), its special projects (tournaments like Mae Young Classic, or the experimental Facebook show Mixed Match Challenge), and its pay per views (WrestleMania, SummerSlam, etc.). That doesn't even include its "noncanonical" shows (like Main Event).
The product is bloated. Twenty X-Men books bloated. Yes, they have several of the most talented wrestlers in the world, but they are essentially telling the same story: good guys and bad guys.
If I were to pick just one show to watch, it would be NXT. With only one hour a week, they have been able to get to the core of what makes wrestling great: story and talent. Talent alone will not get the job done. The audience no longer recognizes talent because there's just so much of it. There needs to be story, and the stories need to be different. The wrestlers need to be well defined, but more than that they need to set themselves apart from the others. But that's hard to do when you have a roster this big. Much of the time, it feels like you're watching a rerun. "Haven't I seen this before?"
NXT does the best job of taking the raw WWE talent and cultivating it into both unique characters and compelling stories.
Unfortunately, by design, much of this talent is "called up" to the main roster (either Raw or SmackDown). You know that awesome X-Men story you just read? Well, those characters were just handed to a creative team that doesn't really "get" them.
Once they reach the main roster, much effort is put into rebuilding these characters from the ground up. NXT does this amazing job of developing these guys, and then the main roster slams the brakes on that momentum. Why? Because the audience for NXT is not necessarily the same audience as the main roster. Remember, NXT is a "niche" show--as much as anything with a WWE brand (that also has action figures at Target) can be considered niche.
This causes cognitive dissonance. It makes me feel like I'm not seeing the same character that was so engaging in NXT--it feels like a new, alternative universe version of that character. Like when a new creative team takes over a comic. On the surface, everything looks the same, but certain inconsistencies pop up. Sometimes Batman remembers who killed his parents; sometimes he doesn't.
It makes the product convoluted, complicated. It needs to be streamlined. It needs compelling stories. It needs a consistent vision. It needs a vision that is in touch with what fans react to. It needs to take risks and experiment with the format. It needs to be different from the way it was 30 years ago.
Comics change from decade to decade. In one decade, they were lighthearted and goofy. In another decade, they were serious and dramatic. In another decade, they became more tonally balanced. Each time, they recognized a need to change. Marvel and DC--they are essentially the WWE of comics. They fall under one umbrella known as the Big Two. Like WWE, they are too big. Unlike WWE, they have changed. They will continue to try new things. They can do this, because their size relative to WWE's is still quite small. There is not a comic published today that has as many as 1 million readers. WWE has several million fans. Superheroes have a lot more room (and need) for growth, even though they consume too much of the retailer's shelf space. The Big Two, despite being too big, still feel like underdogs. They are on TV and in movie theaters, but that doesn't translate to book sales. Meanwhile, WWE is like Galactus, constantly growing and spreading, consuming all the talent, shitting out the product. It's exactly what DC and Marvel would become if given the chance. It's what DC and Marvel were in the '90s.
One major difference between comics and WWE is how they engage the fans. Comics has done a better job of listening to what fans want. Maybe not right away, but they do come around. When people were upset about how women are portrayed, we (eventually) started seeing more books led by women (both characters and creators). Change is slow and frustrating in comics, but it happens.
In WWE, change is an illusion. Everything that appears to be "progress" in WWE feels hollow, shallow, cynical. As with comics, the audience demanded more and better representation for women. So WWE developed their women's roster--stopped calling them "divas." The "let" the women have the main event. They celebrate every "first" (first main event, first cage match, first iron man match). So inspiring, right? But here's how you know it's just a cash grab--the women tend to get only 10 to 15 percent of total air time.
WWE doesn't take risks the same way comics does. They won't put the women in the lead role. Not right away. Not until they know it's "safe." And then they will pat themselves on the back for breaking barriers. Led by the same mind and vision that brought us bra and panties matches. Comics understood that it was time for Chris Claremont to stop writing X-Men. The problem with WWE is that "Chris Claremont" is also the owner, and he'll die before he stops writing those X-Men books.
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